I recently, and finally, managed to make a plane I had long coveted in WoWP shine in a way I hoped to pre-2.05, the Me 262 HG II. My reasoning for not pursuing the HG III, despite having it researched, will be left out of this topic, perhaps made into another one later.

Many of us here at WoWP have had our fair share of experience with HFs. Some of us tend to avoid them, which i can understand, and others are engrossed in the class, which i can also understand. Among those who fall in the first and third camps, we have our own opinions on how to improve these beasts of the sky with equipment. Here, i will be focusing on two specific pieces of equipment:

From what I have heard, the general rule of thumb for HFs suggested to me by various individuals has been to install Long Gun Barrels on HFs, especially High tier HFs. However this seems to be conveyed as though saying to do so on all heavy fighters that have an equipment slot available to use this piece of equipment (assuming there are any that do not). After some experience with both pieces of equipment, I feel the truth is - in actuality - that it depends almost entirely on the HF you are looking at.

Since 2.05 I have had the chance to utilize either of these equipment types - and in a couple cases both - on not one, but Six heavy fighters. Three American, Three German. The P-38F, The F7F, the XF5U on the American side, then the crown jewel of my HFs (for now) - my Me 262 HG II - the Bf 109 Z, and the Me 410 for the German side.

- For the P-38F, I went with Gas-Operated Action. Sure, it would be nice to be able to hit that 37mm gun on targets from afar, but if you want that you might as well snag a Yak-7 or even a Yak-9 (Which I have gone through both of, and enjoyed the heck out of the Yak-9), both of whom have top guns that do considerably better single-shot damage than the P-38F's 37mm gun. What concerned me more was that 37mm gun's painfully slow rate of fire, as without it, all the P-38F has are silly machine guns, rendering it a fat P-51A that is one tier lower. So in order to boost the DPS of this plane a bit - as I stated - I chose Gas-Operated Action. I have not had the opportunity to truly enhance this plane yet, but so far, it has been a decent decision, coupled with the fact it possesses the best turn time of all of its foreign tech tree competitors.

- For the Me 410, I Initially went with Gas-Operated Action, but then realized that the 2 30mm MK-108s are just 1/3rd of the plane's firepower, and the 20mms and machine guns make up for the 30's lack of RoF. So in the end i flip-flopped and went with Long Gun Barrels. The long gun barrels enhance the range of all three gun calibers on the plane, which the machine guns and Mk-108s both particularly need, as the former have a very poor range compared to the other two gun calibers. The Me 410 is a exemplary BnZ plane, because of that it retains the horrific turn times of the previous 5 HF's on the line, it is only with the 109 Z that the turn time is turned on its head. Unlike the last 5 planes though, the Me 410 does have a bit of a nippy pair of turrets, which I have utilized as an attempt to finish off any prey I am unable to outright kill in one pass that has just a sliver of health left. So far the LGBs have proven the more sound decision with the Me 410.

- The Bf 109 Z however is a different story entirely. The Z is where pilots begin seeing jets. A specialist Z can only use a full on loadout of four Mk-108 cannons, the shells are sluggish, but at the same time also suffer the problem of questionable accuracy due to the Z using the 1942 model Mk-108s. The problems with the 1942 Mk-108s, combined with the higher speed of the Z compared to the Me 410 and the increased overall speed that tier 8 matches play at, makes the offense of the 109 Z very difficult to capitalize on when maneuvering. To alleviate this, I chose Gas-Operated Action for the Z. Longer range is well and good, but what does it matter if up to three quarters or more of the shells you fire miss? With the Z's maneuverability in mind, I specialized it and made it able to turn even harder. As it sits right now, my Z is only .6 seconds behind the turn time of a fully upgraded XF5U (assuming it has no equipment that boosts turn time and the pilot has not turn-affecting skills). In a good scenario, I have an opportunity to get the jump on a pancake in the Z, this means getting up close and personal, which makes range irrelevant. Therefore I want to sling as many shells as I can at this hypothetical pancake as i can in the time I have. Gas-Operated Action helps improve this. As a result, my 109 Z isnt just a BnZ fighter, but a relatively agile (and fast) Ambush predator, a playstyle which finds evolution in my HG II, which took harsh lessons from the original Me 262 at T8.

- The F7F has the exact opposite problem of the 109 Z. The guns shells have good velocity, but they lack bite. Considering the F7F has no slow firing weaponry, i chose Long Gun Barrels. Due to the F7F's poorer turning ability compared to the Z, it could not pull off the sorts of things my Z Could, especially with not very strong burst-damage armament. Therefore I focused on giving the F7F more time to engage targets by stretching the range. The F7F's guns have a good overheat time, so it only made sense to go for long gun barrels to ease the mess of a grind that was the F7F had in store. I even skipped researching the rockets and the second airframe to go straight for the MUCH better XF5U. (The bomber escort mode proved absolute paydirt for XP grinding)

- The XF5U has little wrong with it. It is arguably the most OP plane at tier 8, if not the entire game, according to many seasoned vets of the game. The top guns have an great rate of fire, so, like the F7F before it, I had Long Gun Barrels installed and enhanced to extend the XF5U's reach to just over 1000m. The X5FU has the rate of fire, DPS, and turn time to stay on targets long enough to shred them to pieces up close, and the speed to zoom out of a hairy situation if needed. The only thing about the guns that could be improved sensibly was the range, so I did just that. After getting adjusted to the velocity of the 20mm shells, I can say with confidence i will thoroughly enjoy the pancake once I specialize it.

- And finally - for me the most profound example - the Me 262 HG II. I initially installed Long gun barrels on this aircraft based off suggestions by other experienced pilots, but i found that this only worsened my accuracy as I hadn't the slightest inkling of where to lead targets at nearly 1000+m with the still annoyingly slow shells of the HG II's MG-213/30s (though markably better than the Mk-108s, especially in rate of fire). In fact, after getting the XF5U recently, it feels as if the velocity of the MG-213/30's shells should be closer to that of the M39s on the Pancake. The still sluggish speed of the MG-213/30's shells, combined with the speed found at T9-T10 and the fully upgraded HG II's remaining inability to maneuver had me pondering on how to solve its problems. The solution come from looking at the roughly formulated build of my 109 Z.

I flip-flopped on this aircraft as well, and swapped the long gun barrels out for Gas-Operated Action. I swapped out the reinforced airframe I had on the HG II with Light weight Wing Frame, keeping the lightweight power unit and uprated engine equipment on, whilst making sure the gyroscopic sight equipment i had installed kept the accuracy buff in the green to counteract Gas-Operated Action. After virtually maxing out all of the equipment to Ultimate level and then calibrating it nearly to the 478 rating, and even going berserk on Escort mode to train up its pilot's 9th skill point (my 1st ever pilot to reach that many) just to train ADE, the result is a force not to be reckoned with lightly. While my HG II is more fragile than a mere fully upgraded one, the gains are more than worth the risks.

Due to having a currently whopping nearly one and a half seconds shaved off the HG II's turn time, it is just a noticeable touch less agile in a turn than my 109 Z (the difference is a meager 0.3 seconds!!!). Taking into account the speeds often observed at tiers 9 and 10, the turn time feels almost indiscernable between the two, the difference further dampened due to my HG II's uprated engine and its pilots two engine guru skills. Thanks to the uprated engine, my HG II is able to cruise at 727 km/h, a mere 13 km/h slower than a standard XF-90. I did had a bit of an issue with the HG II's acceleration / energy retention early on, due to how aggressively i tried to manuever in the plane. However, thanks to ultimate uprated engine, this has become a much less prominent issue, and I have rarely dipped into the low yellow in airspeed when in the white in altitude.

But combining all of these characteristic changes to the HG II, and then tossing in the increased rate of fire from Gas-Operated action along with a slight increase in accuracy thanks to gyroscopic sight (which I hope to some day improve just a little bit more with marksman I) on top of that completely changed this aircraft for me. The changes were so profound that i was finally able to get a more solid handle on the lead for the MG-213/30s, which further boosted the effect the equipment had on in-battle performance. Now instead of missing targets almost half of the time, I hit them 3/4 of the time at least twice in situations where a fully researched HG II would barely be able to even get one burst off in hopes of hitting a target. The logic of "More shells thrown at the target in the same amount of time is better than just being able to shoot further away from it with slow shells" logic translated even better into the HG II compared to the 109 Z, I've gotten several kills doing barrel rolls just a handful of meters behind the planes I am shooting at, a feat I only did a couple of times before my current setup came into fruition and prior to 2.05 overall. Now my only real problem is the off-times i crash land into the ground from a modest dive at speed due to drag imposed on the plane, though I think that is more of a 'me' problem.

In the long term, I have started flying the HG II frequently again... something that i feel great about.

Overall, its not a one gun-mod-fits-all world for HFs, and its clear it wasn't meant to be. Could others get Long Gun barrels to work on planes that it didn't seem sensible to use on to me? I would bet on it. Could I perhaps learn to use that equipment on the planes I chose to use Gas-operated action on? Maybe, but i am far more comfortable in my play style with Gas-Operated action on them.

I had no intent in saying that Gas-operated action is the real meta to go for in terms of gun equipment. The point of all of this is to say that before you go slapping Long Gun barrels on your HF, look at the stats and think about how you play the plane you are considering installing it on.

Does it make sense for how you play the plane?

Does its trade off hurt your HF's offensive ability too much?

Consider questions like these, among others, when deciding. And of course we all make mistakes, I made 2 as listed on here after all. If you put Gas Operated action on your HF and realize Long gun barrels may have been the better option, that is okay. Sure it may be a bit costly in terms of credits depending on the era of the equipment, but your plane's offensive reliability will be better for it.

hope this gives some of you newer folks out there a little insight. Good hunting to all of you!

Especially when combined with a matched gun site for +30% Crit Chance with advanced gear.
(taking an accuracy or RoF Buff for Ultimate is up to your gun)

Even a P38F with one single 37mm gun +4x .50's can then chew through other heavies with ease (inside of 560 meters) the nerf to burst length is only an issue when shooting at very large bomber flights

or if you miss. So dont miss.
the Marksman1+2 10% dispersion & hitbox buff is helpful here. as is the extra 5% hitbox buff from an ultimate gunsite

I put this set up on an XP 58 (w/Marksman2) and even those derpy cannons will shoot exactly where you tell them to out to almost 600m

Gas Operated Actions improve RoF which goes a long way with Light and Heavy MachineGuns and low caliber autocannons up to about 25mm. But add in the 15% (+10% from a gunsite for 25% overall) Fire Starting Chance and you can spray otherwise ineffective ammo (Even the massed LMGs of low tier russian attack craft vs a stronghold) all over a target of any toughness and size until it catches fire.
This is especially important in Ground Attack/MultiRole because light fighters are fire traps and buildings dont stop burning until they explode.

And once again if wasting ammo is THAT much of an issue there is marksman. (10% dispersion buff means 10% more fires)